commentary: Anniversary Message 2026

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 10-Jan-26; Sermon #1854c; 12 minutes

Description: (show)

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Well, this is January the 10th, which means tomorrow is January the 11th and January the 11th, notice my math skills. Add one. But January 11th is the anniversary of Church of the Great Godthis is our thirty-fourth year of existence as Craig was talking about in a sermon. Yeah, they were founded in the 90s, yeah, 1992. Uh, that seems like a lifetime away. It's, it is 34 years. Uh, that's a long time. Uh, you know, we started small with only 19 there at, at that first Sabbath service down in Laguna Niguel, California, at my uncle and aunt's place. It was It was quite different from being in Worldwide Church of God, but we left worldwide because they were beginning to change the doctrines right and left, and we just could not agree with them anymore. Uh, my dad decided to leave when they came out with the doctrine that demoted. The the gospel of the kingdom of God down below the gospel of Jesus and the gospel of grace. And that just did not square. I mean, you might not think that that was a big thing, but at the time when we were going through all these doctrinal changes, that just was kind of a, a final straw. But it, what my dad saw and all that was that when you take away the goal, when you take away the goal that I should put it this way, when you take away the goal that Jesus set because he went. According to March, Mark 1:14 and 15, he went into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. That's kind of our base scripture. Uh, for what the gospel is all about. He did not say I'm going to preach you a gospel about myself. He did not say I'm going to preach you a gospel about grace. He said, I'm going to teach you a gospel that will allow you to go along the path toward the kingdom of God and reach it. And this is what my father and I have prepared for those who believe. And all the other facets of, of the gospel then work into that. But he came preaching another government, another world, if you will, another way of life and when the Tekachas Mike Fall, Bernie Schnippert Doctor Stavorne, Doctor Stavorides, and all those others started changing all these things and that one especially grabbed our minds and say, no, they are obviously now heading in a completely different direction. And soDad decided to leave, I decided to leave. Martin, Sue, decided to leave, and many others joined us, many others. We had 19 at first. But first Sabbath, but soon more came and What is interesting is that We haven't grown much. I mean, we have more than 19 people. Obviously, this roll call shows that we have more than that, but we have Almost the entire time of our history have had about what I would call about 400 or so core members. People have come in People have left, um, and God has left it there. I mean, it's not that we haven't tried. But we never went into uh just use this, it sounds so dumb, went into the church business um for Uh, to get more members. That was never, from the very beginning, that was not part of it at all. Um. My dad said, well, I want Church of the Great God to be a resource for the Churches of God. He knew that one of his greatest strengths was teaching and studying digging out the truth and presenting, presenting it in a very logical and very deep way. And so he decided that he would continue to do that. Matter of fact if you read our history, what my dad says in there. Uh, he never wanted to be any more than a pastor. He did not want to be an evangelist. He did not want to go out there you know, like on a radio broadcast or a, or a television broadcast and try to preach the gospel to the world because he felt very strongly that he was not called to do that. And so we have always had a Uh An underlying principle that this church is not designed to preach the gospel to the world. It's more designed to feed the flock. And we actually inverted what Worldwide did. They were always, or that, that organization was always preach the gospel, preach the gospel, preach the gospel, and then feed the flock with what's left over. That's the way it seemed to me. Like I said, my dad inverted that, saying that The breakup of the church in the late 90s or late 80s and early 90s was indicative of the fact that we were not actually ready to preach the gospel. Um we had declined so much in terms of our commitment to the truth that those changes were set up in, in the church and, you know, a high percentage of the church just gobbled them up. And so he said, back in '92, we have to change that. We have to make sure that our membership is highly convicted of the truth. And so the church's purpose then from the beginning has been to feed the flock. And people ask us, why do not you have a, a radio show or why did not you, you have a TV show. And we just shake our heads and say that's not our purpose. Our purpose is to be a resource to the church and help them grow spiritually, and whatever people God brings to us, we will happily embrace them and teach them. And so that's what we do. Uh. In the mid to late 90s, we got on the internet and it's proven very helpfulto actually do that leg of the work of God to preach the gospel to more people than are in our ranks here. And here and elsewhere where we have our small groups. But We, we use actually, we use the, the internet and all those resources on it to feed the flock and then if it works to preach the gospel, well, that's value-added. That's something that, that we will take. I do not know why I'm rambling on about this, but I, you know, we have newer members who may not who may not know or remember those things going on back then. And we've always had that core principle of feeding the flock not trying to be wowed by numbers, not trying to get so many members that we can preach the gospel on CNN or WGN or, or WOR or whatever those, those places were. Um, that's never been a goal. And I think God has, has put his stamp of approval on that by, I mean this may sound strange, by keeping us Where we are In that range of about 400 core members. They're very convicted and support us well and You know, he's, we, we have 3 ordained ministers. That's all we need to do this work and 34 years of what we've done has proven that it works, that it's, it's sufficient. And You know, other people might think that we need to grow. Uh, I do not think that's the case. Uh, I mean, grow numerically, um. That's, like I said, it's never been one of our aims. And Our I, I should say, in its place our aim has been to study, to seek the truth, to practice it, and to explain it. And We would much rather see a small number of people. Understand the truth of God and live it out and, and really be committed to God then spread out pablum or just the basics to thousands, um, because God says he has a little flock and he wants that little flock to be prepared for the kingdom of God and thus our one of our mottos of the tagline of forerunner preparing Christians for the kingdom of God. So I guess you could say we are committed to that path. Uh, we are not going to change that path unless God makes it very clear that we should do something else. As the late Charles Whittaker says, we have to learn that when God zigs, we zig, and when God zags, we zag. We do not want to. Zig when he zags or zag when he zigs. So, we just want to follow the cloud as it were, and do what God wants us to do. And if he wants us to do anything different, he'll make it plain. And hopefully, we will be watching for the cloud to move if that should occur. But I hope this helps a little bit to understand why we do what we do. I know this goes out to a fair number of people beyond just Fort Mill and, and our regular congregations. Um, You know, we are not trying to compete with UCG or CAGWA or Living or any of the other ones that, that's, we feel we have a, a separate work to do, something that God ordained for us to do. And we are very happy to do it and, and try to glorify Him in the way we do it.